The Shattered Lands

Adventure Log #3

Honor Driven

After returning to the city from what appeared to be the bottom of this dungeon, where a voice spoke inside my head, I asked Zipp why he was so afraid of the voice. He replied that it was a demon and it was against his god. I thought it a bit odd that he was so focused on burning the demon books and less focused on burning the actual demon. At the speed he was running after he heard the voice I assumed he knew something we didn’t or he was just running much like the scared children do back home. Whatever it was I now know it is there and if it is truly evil I am sworn by honor and justice to vanquish it. That being said I am going back down with or without Zipp. Luckily Szinnit also is going back down so I won’t have to face whatever it is alone. After Mistral twisted a few words in our favor Zipp decided to go back down with some ridiculous condition about burning books. If you ask me we should throw them all in the bag and demand a higher price from the employer.

After Zipp was convinced we all decided that starting on level 2 and working down was the best plan. After many searches for traps we managed to get through most of level 2. This level sparked my interest because it was all smithing and magical weapons. We came to a room that I assumed the place where the previous resident stored his favored weapons as the room was filled with weapon and armor racks. After entering the room first some of the straw on the walls started coming alive and attacking us. These were just a nuisance and I really wished that I could fully explore this level without being interrupted. The rest of the group seemed to handle these creatures well enough but it could have been better. I think Zipp has thrown everyone off by talk of demons and something about the apocalypse if we go back down there.
After we dispatched these straw animations we finally got to look around this room. Sadly most of the weapons here were either ruined or made by a blacksmith that clearly wasn’t dwarven, as the quality was so bad that I wasn’t sure if the metal could even cut rope. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Mistral walking around just touching objects. I took a close look and she had been doing this to all the items in the room made clear by fresh finger marks in the thousands of years’ worth of dust. The whole group started to notice and Zipp as always was first to express his concern. After a short conversation Mistral touched a dagger and purple energy went from the weapon into her hand. This really sparked the whole group’s attention. After that Mistral insisted that she touched everything in every room before we even got a chance to inspect any of the items. This really started to aggravate me as whatever she did to that dagger she was trying to do to other items.

Zipp assumed that the items were magical somehow and wasn’t entirely sure what was going on but Mistral seemed to sap energy from them.
After more searching we came to a large room with a forge and anvils in it. We managed to find this room only because Sznnit detected some moisture nearby. A quick search of the room revealed that there wasn’t much in it. Mistral still walked around touching everything and I was really starting to get annoyed at how disrespectful she was being. These items have been here for several thousand years and the untouched history was fascinating to me. Mistral was really starting to get on my nerves because she was trying to sap power from items and she was disturbing what people left here. There is a certain beauty in these halls, trap ridden as they are. I searched and studied this room for traces of anything valuable when Szinnit said “does this wall look different to you?” I walked over and studied it and couldn’t tell if it was anything. This was just a wall I had no idea what that lizard was talking about. I decided to investigate it further and when I went to touch the wall my hand went through it. Interesting I thought and realized Szinnit was correct I walked into this room and a blast of flames almost got me as I jumped out of the way. Once inside I could tell that this is where the master blacksmith kept all his items. Shortly after talking with Szinnit he joined me after disabling the trap. Szinnit is a mystery to me as he seems to have no real direction. I pondered for a moment about Szinnit wondering what adventure life was putting him through. Szinnit doesn’t seem to care for money though this seemed ok with me. Just means when we get back and his pockets are full I can beat him in a high stakes games of dice.

As I stood there a moment pondering over this room and Szinnit Zipp and Mistral came into the room. Mistral grew bright eyed and moved forward into this room. I can only assume she was going to try and touch items in this room as well. Her need to touch items before we could inspect them was really starting to piss me off. Siznnit blocked her path and told her that she wouldn’t be allowed to touch anything in this room. Zipp slipped past them both and started grabbing every item he could see and putting it in a bag. I quickly helped him as this room must have contained great treasures. Siznnit and Mistral had some sort of scuff and Mistral managed to slip by. She ran to the nearest object only to be blocked again by Szinnit. She then turned to Zipp and ran at the items near him. Zipp tried to keep a peculiar helmet away from her but he wasn’t able to pull it from her grasp. She grabbed the helmet and a bright purple light went from the helmet to her hands. I have had enough of her nonsense and disrespect to the group and to this ancient place. Something needed to be done to stop her otherwise she would just continue without listening to reason. I readied my flail and bashed her over the head. If she wouldn’t listen to logic then I was going to try the brute force approach.

Zipp really disliked my action which I found odd. This is the first time Zipp has really shown me that he is more than just some crook that disguises himself so that he can remain an unknown face. I knew Zipp wouldn’t understand why I did what I did. I don’t think Zipp cares much about this place other than burning it to the ground. Szinnit doesn’t seem to show any emotions over the situation well any more or less than he usually does. After we collected all the items in the room Zipp managed to wake up Mistral. I expected retaliation from her so I kept my weapon and shield at the ready. After a moment she just left and the rest of the group went back to the surface level to rest for the night. During my time on the night watch I struggled a bit with what I had just done. Attacking someone like that wasn’t exactly honorable though being a lieutenant in the war for 15 years I had been put through much worse. I know if someone were to act selfish like that in the heat of battle my own allies wouldn’t have hesitated to kill much less knock them out. If she had acted that way she could have been deemed a traitor by standards that I am use to. With these thoughts I decided that knocking her unconscious while not the best solution, it wasn’t the worst solution either.

With that my mind turned to my father and what his plans were. We had not known who our employer was only that he had the ability to find a group with the appropriate skill set. I thought to myself for a moment if he could be involved somehow. My thoughts were interrupted by Szinnit rolling over and slapping his tail into Zipp’s bedroll. Zipp responded with some comment about “by fire be purged” even though he was still sleeping. Mistral I assumed felt insecure about what happened as she went and slept somewhere else in the city. Hours had passed now and Zipp was the first one up then shortly after Szinnit got up and looked around for Mistral. I stayed behind a moment to finish packing up the things and cover the fire. After we regrouped we went down to the 3rd level the first thing we encountered was a massive pile of rocks. I thought to myself about how easily the group was caught by these. Zipp didn’t want to be here after he found what was in the first room. Mistral claimed they were holy items but according to Zipp they were used to make undead. None of this mattered to me because if it died once by my hands I can kill it again.

Zipp rushed the group through this level so that he could get down and burn those demon books…again I thought to myself he is more concerned about burning the demon books than burning the actual demon…if that’s what it really is. We quickly found a library and after searching the room collected some more journals. Mistral was still going around touching things and it still bothered me. I cared less about these items because they were just a bunch of books no different than I use to read back home.

A hidden bookcase was found and it lead to another library with similar books. We searched again and collected a few more items. After this Zipp seemed convinced that we had found everything that we were looking for and he left followed by Szinnit. I knew this level still had rooms and I was going to explore them. I took off the other way and fell into a pit trap. This was the first trap I had been caught by luckily it was just sandstone and I had my stone smith tools. I could get out of here with some effort. Mistral saw and went to get the others to help. After a short time Zipp had used my dragon head to get the doors open. Then a rope followed and I managed to get pulled back up. Again Zipp and Szinnit left but I was determined that this other way was faster. I took off in the other direction again hoping to beat those two. After a short walk I sprung another trap this time spikes fell from the ceiling. It pierced through my armor and pinned me but I was otherwise unharmed. Mistral managed to disable the trap even though she was still angry about the night before. It was good to see that she is capable of being honorable in a pinch.

After I was free I went through a door and Zipp and Szinnit were standing right in front of me. We regrouped and went back down to the next area. My only mission at this point was to kill whatever was behind that wall. Zipp took off to some other room saying about how he was going to burn those books about evil demons. I fail to see how books are going to do harm to anyone. Szinnit came with me and Mistral stayed with Zipp. Once we arrived at this room the voice started talking to us again. I didn’t care much but Szinnit had a small conversation with the voice. After the conversation we found the lever and opened the door. I took a few steps back in case of a preemptive attack. Once the door was lowered a floating ball with many eyes came out. Szinnit was ready to kill as was I. This being had some very powerful attacks that I was not use to and Szinnit didn’t seem to notice but this power charred parts of my armor. It didn’t matter how powerful this creature was Szinnit and I were going to take it down. I managed to land several solid blows to it as did Szinnit. Mistral arrived after we beat up on this creature though she refused to help at all. This did not help her situation with me. She said that Zipp was on his way through while Szinnit and I were in the heat of battle.

We managed to kill this beast only it disappeared and turned into a pile of eye-stalks. Zipp arrived and saw the aftermath only to be annoyed about what we had done. We entered the library and took any journals we could find. Zipp started burning books after we did our search and Mistral kept touching everything. This whole situation was getting on my nerves so I left telling Szinnit that I was going to finish exploring the upper level. He agreed and came with me and once we were up there we immediately ran into a room with undead creatures in it. Shortly after finding another room with ghouls in it we moved to a room with an more powerful undead creature that beat up on Szinnit a little bit. This angered me slightly so I smacked it hard with my flail to get its attention. Szinnit did the killing blow as Zipp and Mistral arrived. Szinnit and I were a bit exhausted after all the fighting. We explored the last room Szinnit said he would go in even though the door was clearly some sort of spring loaded trap. He was locked in and the group tried to get him out by breaking down the door. It took a few minutes but we managed to get him out. When he came out of the room he was trying to swim in very shallow water. What an odd person Szinnit is I thought to myself. Zipp immediately went to the libraries on this level and started burning them. We all helped so he would be down here for another hour as he was burning these books one at a time. We arrived back and slept for the night in the city again only to make our journey across the desert to the port where we would be heading back.